Rick Perry

I admit it, I’m a political tragic. I watch, I read, I talk politics 24/7 often to the frustration of my friends and family. I love (that’s L-O-V-E) the American political system and its tendency to maneuver effortlessly between political animal, theatrical event and circus performance. I don’t admire the American political system…but it’s like a drug that I can’t get enough of.

I picked Barrack Obama to win in 2008 over a year out, and again in 2012 in fact I’ve been pretty good at predicting US results, and terrible with our own, maybe this is testament to how much I love watching the insanity that Jon Stewart calls ‘Democalypse 2012/2016″ etc…

I am in the middle of watching the two GOP debates on FoxNews and I wanted to state publicly that all the posturing that the candidates are doing is not going to make one jot of difference. Hillary Clinton will be the next President of the United States and the Republicans know it.

Since 2007 the Republican Party has lost the votes of women, minorities and the youth. There has been nothing done to redress this issue, in fact since the 2008 election they have lost even more support from that segment of society. If all things were equal, and a political party was actively trying to attracted a demographic and doing a great job at it, it would take longer that one election cycle to achieve this. The current GOP front runners are not only not doing a good job at attracting back those votes, in many cases they are harming their chances of getting them even more putting at risk the ability to win in 2020 and 2024 as well.

The Republican Party know this as in evident in their attacks on Hilary Clinton already, 16 months out from the election they are already painting here as evil incarnate and blaming her for every negative position they are also throwing at President Obama linking the two as one.

Here is an example from the official GOP twitter account from yesterday.

I think we all accept that Clinton will be the Democratic nominee, but as she isn’t officially selected yet, it’s fascinating that the Republicans are attacking her and are scaring their base into action for 2016. Just watch how many of those kinds of tweets become talking points for ‘Joe the plumber‘ types in news interviews next year.

As ironic as it sounds, and maybe you’ll think me a little naive, but I believe that the only way that the GOP has any chance of taking down the Democrats and getting into the Whitehouse is if the nominee ends up being Donald Trump. The rationale behind this is a little unusual, as a wee bit disrespectful to Mr. Trump, but here goes.

The absolute ridiculous nature or having Donald Trump as POTUS will be so enticing to a sector of the American voting public that he might get the bump he needs. Think the ‘Bill and Ben Party‘ or ‘McGillicuddy Serious Party‘ there is a protest vote that goes with that parody of a party that attracts disenfranchised and young voters. The problem is, Mr. Trump is not a parody, he is very much a real and active part of the American political landscape. I still don’t think that will be enough to get the GOP over the line…but my goodness that would be the best television political tragics like me, would have ever seen.

If the political gods are listening right now please, oh please, oh please let Donald Trump get the Republican nomination

The ‘War’ for South Carolina is happening as I write this post. The winner of the South Carolina Primary will be the GOP nomination to go up against President Obama in November’s election, how can I say this so confidently? Every single nominee for the GOP to run for President in the past, 100% of them, has won South Carolina.

In an earlier post I wrote why Obama will be reelected, I still believe that in fact the events of the last few days have done nothing but confirm my thoughts that America could never elect one of the two front-runners for the Republicans.

Sadly for supports of the Conservative right, your choice will either be Newt Gingrich, or Mitt Romney. Both who have demonstrated hypocrisy to an unbeliveable degree over the past week or so.

Mitt Romney is the GOP favourite at the moment, but more and more is being revealed about his financial past and how he has amassed his vast wealth and it doesn’t fit with the GOP narrative. Before we get into this let me state that I have no problems with a person becoming wealthy, I am not an ‘occupier’, I am not someone who thinks that ‘rich people are bad or evil’, but when your wealth becomes a problem to the message, then we need to figure out the disparity.

Mitt Romney is reportedly worth about a quarter of a billion dollars, which he amassed by forming a private equity firm called Bain Capital. What a private equity firm does is come into failing businesses, or purchase businesses with good potential for leverage and ‘streamlines’ them i.e. they make cuts, then borrow against them. The companies then tend to strip the companies, sell them on in parts and make a big fat profit. The issue that Romney has with all this is that GOP catch cry is “Save jobs and stop borrowing”, but his whole business credentials which he is using to say why he should be President, is one of laying people off and borrowing to make quick cash. That on top of the revelation this week that Romney pay’s ‘in the vicinity of 15%’ tax on the money he makes from investments makes this an embarrassing week for him.

P.A.Y.E in America starts at 10% and the most you pay is 35% depending on your income, but Romney’s income is made from his investments which classifies it as ‘capital gains’, hence Capital Gains Tax is applied which in America is around 15%. So Romney earns millions a year and pays the same percentage in tax as the guy driving his campaign bus. Romney said in the last debate the ‘top tax rate should be down around 25%’, yet he only pays 15%. Another catch cry of the GOP is we are taxed too much, well it would appear Romney is not.

Mitt Romney needs to stop trying to sell the idea that his is ‘working class’ and own that he is the richest politician in the run for President, and one of the richest politicians in America.

Again you could argue that if it doesn’t impact his ability to govern then it shouldn’t matter…but it doesn’t fit with the GOP Christian, conservative, ‘family values’ narrative.

This week we find out that according to Gingrich’s second wife (of three) that he wanted an ‘open marriage’ where he could have a mistress AND keep his wife as well. All this while the Speaker is still standing up for the ideals of marriage “as the union of one man and one woman.”

For Gingrich, ‘the Gays’ are not to be married as it would be ‘an abomination’…but cheating, lying, and multiple hetero marriages is to be defended as ‘God ordained’ and ‘natural.’

All of this happening with many GOP supporters acknowledging that these two the ‘best of a bad bunch’ just confuses me when you have Rick Santorum with a great CV and actually world political experience on the sidelines along with Ron Paul who is really the only ‘real’ small government, less tax candidate. Ron Paul is what Republicans should be…if they weren’t hypocrites.

Finally, I have to admit to being a little intrigued about a very…very…VERY unlikely scenario. Even though she has said she would not run for President and it is contrary to my opening paragraph, I just wonder if we might hear from Sarah Palin as a late entry. The field is so weak, if she came out of the blue with her rock star persona, the ground swell might be there for a Sarah Palin nominee.

Now would it be a bad decision? Well it couldn’t be any worse than a choice between Romney and Gingrich.

Comedians the world over have shed a tear, first Donald Trump, then Hermain Cain now the last of the ‘genuine’ jokes has fallen, Rick Perry says goodbye.

I guess they can still make jokes about Santorim’s name, or Romney’s uncomfortable natures…but the last of their bread and butter has gone.

About the last point of interest is who Perry will now endorse. Politicians in America do this hoping that their followers will then support that candidate…however in this case I am sure the candidate who if being touted by the media as the one likely to receive that endorsement is more than a little uneasy about it.

“There is no viable path forward for me in this 2012 campaign,” he said in a news conference in North Charleston, S.C. “Today, I am suspending my campaign and endorsing Newt Gingrich for president of the United States.

He called Gingrich a “conservative visionary.”

Newt Gingrich found himself in a little hot water speaking to the N.A.A.C.P. saying “If the N.A.A.C.P. invites me, I’ll go to their convention, talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.” The N.A.A.C.P. was not impressed.

Gingrich was then challenged at the latest South Carolina debate asking if he acknowledged that some Blacks could have found that offensive, Newt’s response was a simple, “No!” and then went on another diatribe about teaching the unemployed how to get a job, keep it and own it.

So why would the Perry endorsement be of concern to the Gingrich camp. Well apart from the obvious ‘idiot’ factor, when the dumbest guy say’s your his guy and you think, “If the idiot is endorsing Gingrich…does that mean I am an idiot to support him as well”…apart from that, there is this…caution, contains offensive words

I was going to make some point about the hypocrisy within politics in America, or how these rich white men seem to have lost touch with the “99%” but I think I’ll just say that Perry and Gingrich are GOP nominees…what else would you expect?

The answer is simple. Barrack Obama will win in 2012 because of Romney, Perry, Gingrich, Santorum and Paul. For the sake of the GOP I hope this isn’t the complete list of candidates to take on Obama in 2012, I hope for their sake there is a dark horse hiding somewhere in the wings that may give them a fighting chance. Anyone of the 5 names mentioned above is an ‘own goal’ for the Republican party. None of them can shine a light on Barrack Obama, all of them have ‘issues’ that I don’t think the American public can overcome.

Ron Paul is a libertarian with the GOP catch cry of getting big government out of Americans’ homes. That is the catch cry of all GOP candidates but Paul takes it to an extreme. In fact if I am honest he is probably the only candidate who takes that belief to its logical conclusion. In FOX News debate late last year he made it clear that marijuana, cocaine, heroine, prostitution and gay marriage should be legal. He is consistent, incredibly consistent, but the problem with that consistency is that he will come up against a public that really deep down likes their hypocrisy. The public that doesn’t want Muslims to have the same access to mosques as Christians do to churches, the public that don’t want homosexuals to have the same rights to marriage as straight people and the public who deep down actually want the government in their homes, telling them what to do ala the Patriot Act. His consistency will be his downfall.

Newt Gingrich. Ironically Gingrich began to gather some support when Herman Cain stepped out of the running for infidelity issues, the GOP support then went to Gingrich who has a past of serious and multiple infidelities. He has been married three times; his first marriage was to one of his high school teachers. He had an affair on her, for a sustained period including while she was in hospital for major surgery. He said of this first wife that “she’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer.” He then married the woman with whom he was having an affair on his first wife…and proceeded to have an affair on her with a woman 23 years his junior. This was all going on while he was he was in charge of the investigation against President Bill Clinton for perjury over his affairs. He then married again with the younger woman to whom he is still married today…or at least was at the time of writing this piece. How can a public trust a man who is untrustworthy with the person he is closest with in the world. They can’t…and won’t.

Rick Santorum is probably the person with the best chance of upsetting Obama is you put them head to head. He is a lawyer, 53 years old, has held numerous high level positions within the House of Representatives and the US Senate…but the problem is his name…well maybe not his name…but what his name means. You see in 2003 Santorum was support a bill to make sodomy illegal. When this bill was lost he compared homosexuality, amongst other things, to incest, bigamy and adultery. This incensed a gay rights activist who then set up a website to redefine what Santorum means, it’s pretty graphic but you can Google it and it’s still there as the number 1 and number 3 result. If you are of weak constitution thought you might not want to do it. In 2010 the activist offered to take the site down if Santorum donated $5 million to a group advocating same sex marriage. This did not happen. So whilst he looks a good solid candidate, I think the American public would be a wee bit gun shy of putting this man…with his newly defined name…in front of the world. Although it would be great for comedians.

Mit Romney is Mormon, now that may not sound like a failing to your and I, but to a religious country like America, where Presidents needs to be all about the baby Jesus, if Romney is selected there will be an aggressive advertising campaign to explain the difference between LDS and Evangelical Christian. I would go so far as to say that it would be a greater leap to elect a Mormon as President as it was to elect a black candidate, or as it would be to elect a woman. Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers; they also believe that women will be pregnant for all eternity populating their own planets. Mormons believe that God is an exalted man and we can all become Gods ourselves. Now I have no problem with Mormons, what I am saying is that if Romney is the candidate this is the information that will be broadcast to tell America why they shouldn’t vote for him.

And finally Rick Perry, just three little words for him, he’s a moron.

None of these men (and no I haven’t forgotten Michelle Bachman, I just think she is out of the picture) on their own, or as a candidate are necessarily bad, they may not be bad politicians, they are not bad Americans…but they are all bad choices to go up against Barrack Obama.

Barrack Obama is healthy, clean cut with a great marriage; he is young and vibrant and still have a solid base (30%-40%) of support. Say what you want about Obama, with the birth certificate tomfoolery, accusations of being a Muslim and even his lacking record in his first term are enough to remove him from the top job. It won’t be the margin it was in 2008 but there isn’t enough bad blood for a winning percentage of voters to back any of the top 5 Republican candidates. Not even an American wants to score an own goal in this economic climate.